Symphony 101 | Shreveport Symphony Orchestra Shreveport Symphony Orchestra What is a symphony orchestra? A symphony orchestra is a collection of musicians who play instruments of four basic types: Strings: violins (smallest and highest in pitch), violas, cellos and double basses (largest and lowest in pitch). These players sit in a semicircle directly in front of the conductor and make up more than half the orchestra. Woodwinds: flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and related instruments. These players sit a few rows back from the conductor, in the center of the orchestra. Brass: trumpets, horns, trombones, tubas and similar instruments. These instruments are the loudest, so you’ll see them at the back of the orchestra. Percussion: the drums, bells and other fascinating paraphernalia that are struck, plucked, rubbed, etc. This includes the kettledrums, the harp, and on occasion, the piano. Some works use lots of different percussion; others may have a single musician playing the kettledrums. The percussion section is also found at the back or side of the orchestra.

How come there are more stringed instruments than anything else? The sound of each individual stringed instrument is softer than a brass or woodwind instrument. But in large numbers, they make a magnificent, rich sonority. What does the concertmaster do? The concertmaster sits in the first chair of the first violins. He acts as leader of that section, but also plays a leadership role with the orchestra as a whole. He is also the last orchestra musician to enter the stage before a concert and cues the principal oboist to “tune” the orchestra. Why do all musicians tune to the oboe? The penetrating tone of the oboe is easy for all players to hear, and its ability to sustain pitch is very secure. The principal oboist plays the note “A,” and all the players make sure their “A” is exactly on the same pitch as the oboe’s. This ensures that they all are in agreement about the tuning before the concert begins. Why do all the string players share stands? Fewer stands mean that the musicians, who are moving around quite a bit, have more room to play freely.

Also, because the strings play more continuously than the other parts, their page turns can fall in inconvenient places where there should be no break in the music. Look closely and you’ll see that the player on the outside keeps playing, while the player on the inside briefly stops playing to turn the page. Holly Mulcahy; Concertmaster | Chattanooga Symphony & Opera Chattanooga Symphony & Opera Video Interview After hearing Scheherazade at an early age, Holly Mulcahy fell in love with the violin and knew it would be her future. Since then, she has won multiple tenured positions in symphonic orchestras from Richmond to Phoenix and has performed on a variety of domestic and international tours including the Washington National Opera Japan tour under the leadership of Placido Domingo and the 2012 Carnegie Hall appearance with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. She currently serves as concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra and began developing her leadership skills at the renowned Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University with former Baltimore Symphony concertmaster Herbert Greenberg. In recent seasons she has enjoyed serving as guest concertmaster for the Columbus Symphony (OH), Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and a one year appointment as interim concertmaster for Orchestra Iowa.

As an in-demand performer, Holly maintains a very busy schedule serving as traveling concertmaster for the Emmy Award winner George Daugherty’s Bugs Bunny at the Symphony program and performing with Grammy award winning Nashville Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony. She can also be seen as featured soloist on the PBS special, A Christmas Carol, The Concert. She spends her summers at the celebrated Grand Teton Music Festival where in addition to performing in the violin section and assistant concertmaster, Holly volunteers as an active chamber musician. In the summer of 2011, she performed Pulitzer Prize winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio under Ms. Higdon’s direct supervision. Following the performance, Higdon said “Working with Holly Mulcahy was fantastic. She’s a superb musician and a great colleague. I always think my Piano Trio is a great test for violinists, because it has such wildly varying moods: long and lyrical lines, delicately played, and then racing and driving rhythms, moving at top speeds with intensity. Holly nailed it all splendidly. I would work with her again any chance I could.

She was wonderful.” Passionate about all things etiquette, Holly makes her home in Chicago, IL, where she maintains a reputation for planning and hosting exquisite gourmet parties. In addition to an active performing career, she is the author of Neo Classical, a monthly column on the future of classical music. She enjoys gardening, organic cooking, and spoiling her cats. A lover of all things outdoors, she aspires to start her own organic farm. Holly performs on a 1917 Giovanni Cavani violin, previously owned by the late renowned soloist Eugene Fodor, and a bespoke bow made by award winning master bow maker, Douglas Raguse. What convinced you to pursue a career in music? Watching the Denver Symphony perform Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite as a kid made such an impression on me. I witnessed the audience lose themselves and become transfixed in the music and realized that the most powerful music was sometimes the quietest. I wanted to be part of the magic. Where did you go to school and who did you study with? During my undergraduate and graduate years at The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, I studied with Shirley Givens and the former concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony, Herbert Greenberg.

How did you choose your instrument? The violin solo in Scheherazade was so mesmerizing to me as a child. The story absolutely captivated me for my entire 3rd grade life and when it came time to choose instruments, violin seemed obvious. What do you want music lovers to know about your instrument? My violin was owned by the late Eugene Fodor, first American prize winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition. I happened to run into Gene as he was dropping off the instrument with our mutual violin repairman and fell in love with it on the spot and bought it directly from him. This 1917 Giovanni Cavani violin holds a lot of sentimental value to me as Gene was one of my childhood idols. What music are you listening to right now? Typically I’m listening to whatever I’m preparing for in upcoming weeks. But when I’m not in research mode, I like to listen to music from Westerns and James Bond films. What is on your nightstand, iPad, Kindle etc.? I have several months of cooking magazines and books about food stacked up on my nightstand. What is your favorite Chattanooga hangout? Any place with good food, coffee, and/or donuts.

Who is your favorite composer and/or favorite piece? Prokofiev is my favorite composer, and his Romeo and Juliet suites are favorite pieces. A Short History of the Symphony Orchestra A Short History of the Symphony Orchestra People have been putting instruments together in various combinations for as long as there have been instruments, thousands and thousands of years. But it wasn't until about the last 400 years that musicians started forming into combinations that turned into the modern orchestra. In the old days, when musicians got together to play, they used whatever instruments were around. If there were three lute players, a harp, and two flutes, then that's what they used. By the 1500s, the time known as the Renaissance, the word "consort" was used to mean a group of instrumentalists, and sometimes singers too, making music together or "in concert". Early Renaissance composers usually didn't say what instrument they were writing a part for. They meant for the parts to be played by whatever was around. But around 1600 in Italy, the composer Claudio Monteverdi liked things just so.

He knew just what instruments he wanted to accompany his opera Orfeo (1607), and he said exactly what instruments should play: fifteen viols of different sizes; two violins; four flutes, two large and two medium; two oboes, two cornetts (small wooden trumpets), four trumpets, five trombones, a harp, two harpsichords, and three small organs. You can see that Monteverdi's "Renaissance orchestra" was already starting to look like what we think of as an orchestra: instruments organized into sections; lots of bowed strings; lots of variety. In the next century (up to about 1700, J.S. Bach's time) the orchestra developed still further. The violin family, violin, viola, cello, and bass, replaced the viols, and this new kind of string section became even more central to the Baroque orchestra than the viols had been in the Renaissance. Musical leadership in the Baroque orchestra came from the keyboard instruments, with the harpsichordist, or sometimes the organist, acting as leader. When J.S.

Bach worked with an orchestra, he sat at the organ or harpsichord and gave cues from his bench. In the Baroque era, a musical director occasionally stood and conducted, but not in the way we're used to seeing. Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was in charge of music at the French court in the 1600s, used to pound out the beat for his musicians using a sort of long pole, which he tapped on the floor. But once, he accidentally hit his foot, developed gangrene, and died! In the next century, the orchestra changed a lot. This takes us up to 1800, Haydn's and Beethoven's time. The strings were more important than ever, and the keyboard instruments had taken a back seat. Composers began to write for the specific instrument they had in mind. This meant knowing each instrument's individual "language" and knowing what kind of music would sound best and play easiest on a particular instrument. Composers also began to be more adventurous about combining instruments to get different sounds and colors.

The first violinist, or concertmaster, led the orchestra's performance from his chair, but sometimes, a music director would lead part of a performance with gestures, using a rolled-up piece of white paper that was easy for the musicians to see. This led to the baton that conductors use today. And early in the 1800s, conductor-composers such as Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn actually began to stand up on a podium and conduct from front and center As orchestras were getting bigger and bigger, all those musicians couldn't see and follow the concertmaster. Later in the 1800s, the orchestra reached the size and proportions we know today and even went beyond that size. Some composers, such as Berlioz, really went all-out writing for huge orchestras. Instrument design and construction got better and better, making new instruments such as the piccolo and the tuba available for orchestras. Many composers, including Berlioz, Verdi, Wagner, Mahler, and Richard Strauss, became conductors. Their experiments with orchestration showed the way to the 20th century.

Wagner went so far as to have a new instrument, the Wagner Tuba, designed and built to make certain special sounds in his opera orchestra. In one of his symphonies, Strauss wrote a part for an alphorn, a wooden folk instrument up to 12 feet long! (The alphorn part is usually played by a tuba.) And Arnold Schoenberg wrote a piece called Gurrelieder for a 150-piece orchestra! The 20th century has been a century of freedom and experimentation with the orchestra. It has also been a time of superstar conductors, as the conductor has more and more responsibility and visibility. The "basic" 19th-century orchestra is still around, and composers sometimes add or subtract instruments, depending on the effect they want to get. You might see a hugely expanded percussion section, or lots and lots of woodwinds and brasses. But the orchestra still takes more or less the same form: a big string section, with smaller sections for brasses, woodwinds, percussion, harps and keyboard instruments. After all these years, it still works! Why does the orchestra always tune to the oboe?

| Jobs and Internships Why does the orchestra always tune to the oboe? Circumstances of history, mostly, but also acoustics. The first orchestras (in the late 1600s) were mainly string instruments. A pair of oboes was sometimes used to strengthen the first and second violin parts. Soon composers were writing separate parts for the oboe, exploiting its singing tone as a contrast to the violins. The bright, rather penetrating sound of the oboe was easy to hear, and its pitch was more stable than gut strings, so it was natural to rely on it for tuning (One can also imagine it settling, or preventing arguments. Twenty string players squabbling over a tuning note, then asking the oboist to intervene). Other instruments drifted in and out of the orchestra – flutes, bassoon, French horns, clarinets – before its instrumentation became relatively standardized as we know it today. But oboes were almost always present, so they became the standard instrument for tuning. There are exceptions. Sometimes a composer chooses to replace the oboes altogether with the mellower clarinets. In that case, the clarinet becomes the de facto tuning instrument.

Then there are keyboard instruments like piano, harpsichord or organ. The entire orchestra must tune to them, but the oboe still plays a role. When a keyboard instrument joins the orchestra as either a featured instrument or just a section member, the oboist listens to the ‘A’ played by the keyboard, matches it, and plays it so the rest of the orchestra can hear. And what if there is no keyboard, no oboe, no clarinet – just strings? Then the concertmaster pre-tunes his or her A string to A=440 Hz and plays the note for everyone else to hear. Orchestras always tune to ‘A’, because every string instrument has an ‘A’ string. The standard pitch is A=440 Hertz (440 vibrations per second). Some orchestras favor a slightly higher pitch, like A=442 or higher, which some believe results in a brighter sound. If you ever played in concert band, you’ll remember that you always tuned to B flat. This is because most of the band instruments are actually pitched in B flat, and so this is their natural tuning note. Here’s a little secret you’ll never know as an audience member.

Oboes can play sharp or flat, just like any other instrument. But every oboist uses a little electronic meter to ensure that their ‘A’ is exactly right. In fact, some orchestras – even major orchestras – have gone ‘modern’ and use an electronic device to sound the tuning note. Even then, tradition is respected: it’s the oboist who turns the device on for tuning, and off when the task is completed! San Francisco Symphony - First Violins San Francisco Symphony Concertmaster, Naoum Blinder Chair Alexander Barantschik, occupant of the Naoum Blinder Chair, began his first season as Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony in September 2001. Former concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra (1989-2001) and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (1982-2001), he has also been an active soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe. He has collaborated in chamber music with André Previn and, on a number of occasions, Mstislav Rostropovich, with whom he participated in a series of concerts that also featured violinist Maxim Vengerov and violist Yuri Bashmet.

As Leader of the LSO, Mr. Barantschik toured Europe, Japan, and the US, and served as concertmaster for acclaimed cycles of Mahler, Stravinsky, and Debussy with Michael Tilson Thomas, as well as major symphonic cycles with Rostropovich and Bernard Haitink. He was also concertmaster for Pierre Boulez’s year-long, three-continent 75th Birthday Celebration. Born in Saint Petersburg in 1953, Alexander Barantschik attended the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and went on to perform with the major Russian orchestras, including the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic. After emigrating from Russia in 1979, he served as Concertmaster of Germany’s Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. His awards include first prize in the International Violin Competition in Sion, Switzerland, and in the Russian National Violin Competition. Since joining the SFS, Mr. Barantschik has led the Orchestra in several programs and appeared as soloist in concertos and other works by J.S.

Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Walton, Piazzolla, and Schnittke, among others. Through an arrangement with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Mr. Barantschik has the exclusive use of the 1742 Guarnerius del Gesù violin once owned by the virtuoso Ferdinand David, who is believed to have played it in the world premiere of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in 1845. It was also the favorite instrument of the legendary Jascha Heifetz, who acquired it in 1922 and who bequeathed it to the Fine Arts Museums, with the stipulation that it be played only by artists worthy of the instrument and its legacy. (February 2016) Associate Concertmaster, San Francisco Symphony Foundation Chair Nadya Tichman joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1980. She has been Associate Concertmaster and occupant of the San Francisco Symphony Foundation Chair since 1990, and she served as Acting Concertmaster from 1998 to 2001.

Born in New York, Ms. Tichman studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School and received her bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where her teachers were Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo, and Yumi Ninomiya-Scott. She continued her studies in San Francisco with Isadore Tinkleman. Ms. Tichman has appeared as soloist with the SFS on many occasions, including Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, which the San Francisco Chronicle selected as one of 2009’s ten outstanding performances. She was a founding member of the Donatello Quartet and previously served as co-director of Chamber Music Sundaes. She has participated in festivals such as the Grand Teton Music Festival, Chamber Music West, Music in the Vineyards, the Gualala Summer Arts Festival, and the Olympic Chamber Music festival. A champion of contemporary music, she has had pieces dedicated to her by composers Peter Schickele, Jim Lahti, and Allen Shearer. In 2013 she and her sister, pianist Nina Tichman, played the New York premiere of German composer Stefan Heucke’s second violin sonata.

She can be heard on a New Albion recording of music by Peter Scott Lewis. Ms. Tichman plays a 1724 Stradivarius violin purchased by the San Francisco Symphony for her exclusive use. She has also served as a mentor for the SFS’s Community of Music Makers program. (March 2015) Assistant Concertmaster, 75th Anniversary Chair SFS member since: 1972 Hometowns: Milwaukee, WI, St. Paul, MN Music school you attended: Stanford University Began playing music: At age 11 Musical inspirations: My church choir director If I were not a professional musician, I might be a: History or German teacher Favorite composers: J.S. Bach, Frederick Delius Favorite works featuring my instrument: Goldmark’s and Delius’s Violin Concertos; “Erbarme dich,” from Bach’s St.

Matthew Passion; any piece by Fritz Kreisler When I’m not working, I enjoy: Going to the race track (Golden Gate Fields); watching college football and People’s Court on TV Recent reading: Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores, by Alan Tyson (I don’t read fiction) On my CD player/iPod: Coon-Sanders Nighthawks and Gus Arnheim Cocoanut Grove Orchestra (both from early 1930s) Favorite thing to do in the Bay Area: Go for walks. The East Bay Regional Park system is wonderful! Jeremy Constant Hometown: Toronto, Ontario Other interests: I got my pilot’s license in 1996, and went on to build my own airplane. It is an experimental Vans RV7A that took 7 ½ years to complete and it passed the FAA inspection, receiving its airworthiness certificate in November of 2010. It’s been a blast, and a huge project. Music and flying: Musical performance and flying a plane are similarly all-encompassing.

And there’s certainly risk in both, though as Flying magazine writer Lane Wallace observed, “In performance you may feel like you could die, but in the end, unlike flying, it’s a death you can live with.” A lot of people focus on the risks, but both activities are about feeling joy. On being in an orchestra: What made me first love orchestral playing was this idea of having more than 100 people working toward exactly the same thing. When those 100 people and the conductor are really good, the performance can spontaneously change and the orchestra will still be together. It’s the closest thing we have to telepathy. Playing in an orchestra is an inherently uplifting activity and I’m very grateful that I’m able to make a living doing something that I view as a fundamentally positive endeavor. Recent listening: I often listen to internet radio service Pandora. I have a station I programmed with everything from Santana and Led Zeppelin to Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, and Billie Holiday. And Bach is always in my CD player—his music clears my mind and reminds me of what got me interested in music in the first place.

Mariko Smiley Paula & John Gambs Second Century Chair Mariko Smiley Violin, Paula and John Gambs Second Century Chair Member since 1982 Hometown: Mill Valley, CA On being in the Orchestra: The mix of personalities in the Orchestra is always fascinating to me—I really enjoy that. It’s so educational to communicate with people not just through conversation, but also by interacting musically. It’s a very enlightening way of getting to know someone. Musical memory: I remember when Rostropovich came to San Francisco just after he had left the Soviet Union. He played the Dvořák concerto. I think I was 15 at the time, and some friends and I found seats near the front. That was a really memorable occasion, plus musically it was so wonderful. Activities: I love to teach; right now I’m on staff at UC Berkeley, and it’s something I’d like to carve out more time for in the future. I also do a lot of chamber music wherever I can fit it in. I play in the SFS Chamber Music Series, and in Berkeley, and I used to play in the Aurora Quartet with my Symphony colleagues.

SFS highlights: I enjoyed the New and Unusual Music Series we did in the ’80s. I like to play new or lesser-known compositions every now and then. A lot of the music I didn’t necessarily love, but I like the variety, and the idea of bringing all sorts of music to all sorts of audiences. On being a musician: It is interesting to be around people who think so much about music, and who are really immersed in it. After family, music is our first priority—it always comes back to that. You always have a piece of music going through your head; you are always thinking in musical terms. That’s simply how your brain works. You might say we are obsessed with one thing; it’s true, but hopefully it’s true in a good way. Mariko Smiley has served as a Symphony mentor in the SF Symphony Community of Music Makers program . Melissa Kleinbart Music schools you attended: Juilliard School of Music Began playing music: At age 5 Musical inspirations: Hearing classical music on the radio and always picking out the violin as the instrument I wanted to play—I just always thought that would be my career.

If I were not a professional musician, I might be a: Travel Photographer/journalist or a child developmental psychologist Favorite composers: Stravinsky, Bach, Bartok, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, and Mozart Favorite works featuring my instrument: Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht, Brahms' A Major Piano Quartet, Bach's unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas, Scubert's Death and the Maiden, Brahms and Beethoven violin concerti, music for violin by Astor Piazzola and the Bartok String Quartets. When I’m not working, I enjoy: Spending time with my daughter, traveling, photographing, relaxing! Recent reading: Poisonwood Bible, Einstein's Dreams On my CD player/iPod: Schumann "Dichteliebe" with Fritz Wunderlich, Schubert Impromptus with Murray Perahia, podcasts of "This American Life." Favorite things to do in the Bay Area: I live near Golden Gate Park and love to spend time there, whether It's running at Stow Lake, pondering at the Japanese Tea Gardens, relaxing in front of the Conservatory of Flowers or meandering at the deYoung.

When time permits, I enjoy trips to the wine country, hikes near the ocean and working in my garden. Yun Chu Hometown: Shanghai, China On joining the SFS: I started playing violin when I was four years old. My first teacher was Jing Liang Liu, the father of Yun Jie Liu, who is Associate Principal Violist in the Symphony. I studied with him for many years. I came to the United States and I was studying in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California when Jie Liu told me there was an opening here. I practiced hard for two months and got lucky at my audition. Favorite composers: I like Romantic composers—Richard Strauss, Mahler, Brahms. With the Orchestra, some of my favorite works are Mozart and Haydn symphonies. I especially like the way those composers wrote for string sections. The music is fun to play, and we get a very rich sound. On being in an orchestra: I’m always learning from the musicians around me and from the conductors. If I play a piece one year and then again the next year, I try to hear it differently the second time.

My experience is growing, and also the way I listen to the ensemble changes: Sometimes I focus on the winds, sometimes on the lower strings, or the violins. I find something new each time. Hometown: Seattle, WA Reading: My husband (SFS Principal Cellist Michael Grebanier) and I own tribal art pieces from Ontong-Java that Jack London collected in 1909 during his sailing cruise to the South Seas, and so I started reading his log of the voyage. Interests: It’s wonderful to go sailing on our boat; we've had some great coastal sailing adventures. I also like to bushwhack in our garden. My doctor calls me his "favorite poison oak patient.” SFS highlights: I feel very lucky to be in the Orchestra. There have been many highlights, beginning with the 5-week tour to Europe and Russia with conductor Seiji Ozawa—that was amazing. I'll never forget cellist Mstislav Rostropovich teaching us the Russian national anthem in Moscow, the throngs of people at the stage door greeting us, exchanging pins with them, and how they waited for us at the end of the concert.

We also toured Japan with Seiji and he was treated like a rock star! I loved playing Don Juan under conductor Fabio Luisi. Other musical activities: I was in the Aurora Quartet for more than twenty years and did several recordings; I especially liked recording the Prokofiev quartets. Hometown: Yokohama, Japan Music studies: I left Japan when I was 18 to study at the Vienna Hochschule. I was planning to be there for just three or four years to finish school. But then I started to do a lot of chamber music, and to get more involved in orchestral playing, and three years became nine years. I was pretty much set to live there for my whole life, until I got the opportunity to come to Florida and play in MTT’s New World Symphony. On being in the Orchestra: Playing in an orchestra, you get so many different ideas from the musicians and conductors around you. In doing that, your vision gets wider. If you play solos all the time, you develop your own strong sense of how you want to play; but here, you have to be more flexible, and I like that.

After we play a really great concert, it is a great feeling to know that I contributed one little part to something that became a really fine production. Favorite composer: I love the music of Brahms. I think that his pieces are well-structured and complex, and also have such beautiful melodies. To me Brahms’s music is very romantic and I get emotional playing it. In Sun Jang In Sun Jang, a top prize winner at the International Henryk Szeryng Violin Competition, made her Korean recital debut in 2000 at the Kumho Art Center in Seoul, Korea and her Japanese recital debut in 2004, playing for sold-out audiences at the Airefu Hall in Fukuoka and at the Cultural hall in Shiida, Japan. She has also appeared as a soloist with the New World Symphony, the Puchon Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nanpa Festival Orchestra. In 2001, by special invitation of the late Isaac Stern, Ms. Jang performed at Carnegie Hall as part of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop.

She has collaborated with some of the world’s top artists, performing with Menahem Pressler, Thomas Adès, and Orion String Quartet among others. Her numerous engagements as a chamber musician have taken her to many renowned venues in Asia and America such as Jordan Hall in Boston, Yellow Barn Music Festival in Vermont, Miyazaki Prefectural Arts Center in Miyazaki, Japan and the Seoul Art Center and LG Art Center in Seoul, Korea. A native of Seoul, Korea, Ms. Jang began studying violin and piano at the age of four. She graduated from the Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein. Prior to joining San Francisco Symphony in 2011, she was a concertmaster with the New World Symphony. Yukiko Kurakata Hometown: Tokyo, Japan Musical influences: I studied with a wonderful teacher in Japan, named Takiko Ohmura. She was the first Japanese violinist to enter the Juilliard School and she came back to Japan because of World War II. Later, I studied with Jascha Heifetz at the University of Southern California, and I taught as his assistant.

He was a tremendous influence, as was cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, who was also teaching at USC. On being in the Orchestra: The feeling of community in the San Francisco Symphony is amazing. I admire the myriad of talents and the musicianship of my colleagues; in concerts, we completely focus on listening to each other and on experiencing the music together. And we are supportive of each other both in and out of music—a special quality that has been noticed by some out-of-town friends. Other activities: I enjoy teaching at home. I practice the pieces my students are studying, and some are very difficult and keep me busy! Recent reading: I enjoyed John Adams’s Hallelujah Junction very much. We have played his Harmonielehre, which was also recorded live. I thought the piece was so beautiful and also enjoyed reading Adams’s explanation of his use of titles like Meister Eckhart and Quackie in our program notes. Now I want to see all his operas! I have been privileged to have played in many of the productions of Adams’s work at the Symphony, including the beautiful El Niño and A Flowering Tree.

Yukiko Kurakata has served as a Symphony mentor in the SF Symphony Community of Music Makers program . Suzanne Leon Hometown: Grosse Pointe, MI Favorite works: I was very fortunate to play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Symphony of the Redwoods—that concerto is one of the gems of the repertory. And I love anything by Prokofiev. Musical influences: It was incredible studying with some of the best teachers in the world at Curtis. The Curtis orchestra would rehearse whatever the Philadelphia Orchestra had programmed, culminating with their guest conductors leading us in rehearsal by the end of each week. I was inspired by Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, to name a few. Activities: Yoga, alternative medicine, chamber music, and organic food are all big interests of mine. I like trying new recipes from gourmet cookbooks, including The French Laundry Cookbook and The Babbo Cookbook. Practicing violin daily and doing homework with my youngest son keeps me very busy. Advice for aspiring musicians: Profiled in our Meet the SFS Musicians series, Suzanne Leon discusses family.

Leor Maltinski Hometown: Tel Aviv Important musical influences My violin teacher since I was eight years old, Igor Polesitsky, is a major influence. When I was old enough, I would take a bus, have a lesson, stay overnight, and have another lesson. It was fantastic. Igor would often invite musicians over and we would play chamber music, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning. Igor taught me to always seek the true essence of the music while reading what’s in the score. Becoming a musician My father is a physician and a classically trained lyric tenor. He took me to my first opera when I was three years old. After moving to Siena, Italy, he taught me music notation, and brought me a quarter-size, Chinese-made violin from Florence when I was six. I was twelve when I had my, let’s say ‘debut.' From then on I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Hometown: New Haven, CT Musical influences: When I was at Juilliard there was a group of students and professional musicians that got together for these great chamber music parties at cellist and friend Daven Jenkins’s apartment.

You never knew who’d be there; it was so much fun. Those parties were a big influence on my concept of what music is really about: playing for the sheer joy of it. Career paths: I’ve branched into other careers, including being a recording engineer and producer. I have a recording studio now, and SFS Recording Engineer Jack Vad has been a great mentor. I’ve been learning about microphones, how to edit, how to master and produce CDs, all of which has affected how I listen to music. You start to understand how things are pieced together, and how musical decisions can be made during the editing process. I’ve also been composing a lot. Recent activities: I play in chamber music groups including the Tilden Trio and a violin duo called Tangled with my wife, (SFS violinist) Mariko Smiley. Profiled in our Meet the SFS Musicians series , Sarn Oliver explains how his myriad hobbies—including rock climbing and composing—feed his passion for playing music.

Florin Parvulescu Hometowns: Bucharest, Romania; New York Music schools you attended: Juilliard, Peabody Conservatory Began playing music: At age 6 Musical inspirations: My parents If I were not a professional musician, I might be a: Visual artist Favorite composers: Bach, Brahms, Strauss, Beethoven, Bruckner, Franck, Stravinsky, Nielsen Favorite works featuring my instrument: Brahms, Violin Concerto; Franck, Violin Sonata; Bach and Beethoven sonatas When I’m not working, I enjoy: Going out with friends and having lively discussions Recent reading: Hemingway Instruments of the Orchestra: The Strings Family Instrument Families When we talk about musical instruments, we often talk about them as being part of a family. That's because, just like in human families, the instruments in a particular family are related to each other. They are often made of the same types of materials, usually look similar to one another, and produce sound in comparable ways. Some are larger and some are smaller, just as parents are bigger than children.

The String Family When you look at a string instrument, the first thing you'll probably notice is that it's made of wood, so why is it called a string instrument? The bodies of the string instruments, which are hollow inside to allow sound to vibrate within them, are made of different kinds of wood, but the part of the instrument that makes the sound is the strings, which are made of nylon, steel or sometimes gut. The strings are played most often by drawing a bow across them. The handle of the bow is made of wood and the strings of the bow are actually horsehair from horses' tails! Sometimes the musicians will use their fingers to pluck the strings, and occasionally they will turn the bow upside down and play the strings with the wooden handle. The strings are the largest family of instruments in the orchestra and they come in four sizes: the violin , which is the smallest, viola , cello , and the biggest, the double bass , sometimes called the contrabass. (Bass is pronounced "base," as in "baseball.") The smaller instruments, the violin and viola, make higher-pitched sounds, while the larger cello and double bass produce low rich sounds.

They are all similarly shaped, with curvy wooden bodies and wooden necks. The strings stretch over the body and neck and attach to small decorative heads, where they are tuned with small tuning pegs. Etsuko Kimura | Toronto Symphony Orchestra Age you began playing: 4 Year you joined the TSO: 2007 Who or what inspired you most to play your instrument? My mother was a violin teacher, and my father was a conductor. I had almost no choice! Why did you choose to be a professional musician? When I was 18, I became ill and I was hospitalized for three months. During this time, I developed a very close friendship with several other patients. At the time, I was young and naïve, and hadn’t yet considered the subject of death seriously before. Then I heard that two of my friends were not going to live long. One friend was only 15; the other was older but had a young daughter. They knew I was studying music in college.

One day, one of them said to me, “I really want to come to listen to you play the violin, but unfortunately, I’m not able to....” This was painful for me to hear, and I struggled with how I could help my friends in their suffering. After they passed away, I promised them and myself that I would do something with my violin to help people—make them happy, inspire them, and, even if just for a few moments, free them from their suffering. What is interesting to you about working in an orchestra? I love the variety of sounds and sound colours you can achieve with a musical ensemble of almost a hundred people. What wisdom would you impart to students and aspiring musicians? Never give up! Work hard! And go to as many concerts as possible! What is your favourite music to play? Béla Bartók What is your most memorable concert experience as an audience member? When Itzhak Perlman came to Osaka for the first time; he performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. The second movement was so beautiful that I cried like a baby. He was also so nice to give everyone waiting outside the artist entrance after the concert a handshake and his autograph.

What 3 recordings (of any genre) would you want to have with you on a desert island? Bach’s Goldberg Variations played by Glenn Gould, Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings, and Japanese traditional folk songs and children’s songs. If you were not a full-time musician, what would you be? I would be a nurse, a psychologist, or a music therapist. Or, since I started yoga, I would be a yoga instructor! - top - Musician Biography Assistant Concertmaster Etsuko Kimura joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2007. She appears frequently at concert halls across Canada and the world, leading eminent chamber ensembles, performing as a featured soloist with major international orchestras, and maintaining a full recital calendar. When she is not performing with the TSO, she serves as a guest concertmaster for orchestras in Japan and many other countries. Ms. Kimura has performed extensively as a soloist, giving frequent recitals and collaborating with many of the world’s greatest musicians, music directors, chamber groups, and orchestras.

She has performed as a guest artist with the Budapest Ferenc Erkel Chamber Orchestra and the Szombathely Radio Orchestra in Hungary, as well as with orchestras throughout Japan, including the prestigious Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band. A highly sought-after collaborator, she has appeared on stage with such eminent violinists as Masafumi Hori (Concertmaster, NHK Symphony Orchestra), Toru Yasunaga (former Concertmaster, Berlin Philharmonic), and Tomotada Soh, as well as with violist Nobuo Okada (former Principal Viola, Bamberger Symphoniker-Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie). Ms. Kimura is a faculty member at Canada’s Interprovincial Music Camp, and gives violin performance and chamber music masterclasses all over the world for middle and high school students. She stands out as a musician who is greatly involved in bringing music to the community: she has participated in the TSO’s various education programmes, and performs regularly at hospitals and other venues where she can use her musical talent to touch lives.

Question: Traditionally, the concertmaster of a symphonic orchestra plays what instrument?
Answer: Violin